Friday, 6 December 2024
Brain rot and toilet videos
Michael Cook has a timely Mercator piece on the Pope's antidote to brain rot caused by excessive use of social media.
The Pope has an antidote to ‘brain rot’
The Oxford English Dictionary has selected “brain rot” as its word of the year. As the Christmas holidays approach, other dictionaries and publications have nominated their own neologisms. The Collins English Dictionary chose “brat”, which Kamala Harris was apparently. I still don’t know what it means. The Macquarie Dictionary, the leading Australian dictionary, chose “enshittification”, which confirms British stereotypes about Aussie yobbos. The Economist chose “kakistocracy’, the rule of the worst, which, it says, fits President Trump’s cabinet nominees.
The others will fade, but brain rot is here to stay. It refers to the intellectual decay caused by overuse of social media, video gaming, doom-scrolling, zombie-scrolling, and so on. If you want to research the area further, check out the fabulously popular Skibidi Toilet videos, about animated toilets with talking heads trying to take over the world.
Not the the Pope is a sound guide to modern fads and fashions, but the whole piece is worth reading as we contemplate rather obvious cases of brain rot in our governing class. Or ethical rot, it isn't always easy to spot the difference.
After his reflections on literature earlier this year, the Pope turned to the study of history. Again, he emphasised the need for depth – we study history not to accumulate facts for trivial pursuit but to know ourselves and our societies better.
He introduces a useful distinction. Internet brain rot is diachronic or horizontal– concerned only with the here and now. But the human spirit needs to be synchronic, vertical, – looking to the past and the future. “No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations,” he writes.
Essentially Pope Francis is saying that control of smartphones is a moral crisis. If we fail to help the emerging generation conquer brain rot, we will have a lot to answer for. Society will be run by post-literate morons who grew up watching Skibidi Toilet videos.
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5 comments:
"we study history not to accumulate facts for trivial pursuit but to know ourselves and our societies better." No: we study history to learn that there are/were other societies that do things in different ways and live by different customs, habits, and moral codes. (And also because we enjoy a good yarn, especially along the lines of 'how we got to where we are'.)
Well, I've had a quick look at the skibidi toilet videos, and found them to be as addictive as drying paint. I'm not sure about the contention that "brain rot" is a modern phenomenon born of excessive screen time, though. Before the internet, people were capable of wasting huge amounts of time reading about which horses could run fastest, or what footballers, naughty vicars, and TV presenters got up to. Or just playing Walter Mitty type fantasies in their mind. I often meet the same bloke out walking his dog, and he never tires of telling me how strong and dangerous it is ("He could easily pull down a bull...") but how well he has trained it.
I might recommend the toilet videos - the dog might like them.
dearieme - I agree, it's not about knowing our societies better, it's other societies we study, trying not to judge them by our standards too.
Sam - I avoided the toilet videos, too much hilarity might be bad for me. Yes, "brain rot" isn't modern, but a modern cause is more available and maybe more addictive.
It's a pity you can't meet that dog walker with a huge bull on a lead.
BR became a spreading condition when the BBC deviated from its mission to Educate and Entertain. Who could watch Antandeck, Gogglebox, The Wheel?, The Wall? and all their ilk for hour after hour and not feel the little grey cells coagulating as the brain loses all its wrinkles and becomes as smooth as a peeled plum.
Is it intended? Do the PTB and the WEFers not want their Eloi to be complacent and unthinking. Just work, consume whatever concoction they are offered, be ready to partake in any war that is set up for them and die (assisted) when they are no longer a profitable resource.
Just because one is paranoid does not mean that " They" are not out to get you.
Doonhamer - I think the BBC should have gone for Educate or Entertain, not both. It now treats everything as entertainment, although it would have drifted in that direction anyway.
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